South Africa to drop emblem

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ONE of the best-known national sporting emblems, the springbok, appears certain to be removed from the blazers and caps that South Africa rugby players wear in future. Under a new direction from the South African Sports Commission, it will be replaced by the king protea, the national flower.

The springbok emblem, first worn on national rugby jerseys during the 1906-07 tour to Britain and Ireland, was considered by the African National Congress to be overly representative of the apartheid years. It was banned from use in all sports apart from rugby, which was granted special dispensation by Nelson Mandela when